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As anachronistic as it can be, console game stores are still region locked and Sony's PS Store isn't any different in that regard. If your account region is set to US you can't buy games from the JP or EU store. For that reason many user have resorted into creating multiple different separate account, with all the annoyances this brings (more attack surface, needing to switch accounts etc).

The Store settings offer a weird option that allows you to choose a different "store region".

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but as you can see this does NOT allow for purchase of content from a different region.

You can only make purchases from your home country storefront.

For some time I therefore wondered: WHY would someone want to use such an utterly useless travesty of a setting? Am I missing something obvious? What can I gain by looking at another region store if I can't actually buy anything?

The question is very simple: Is there any advantage in changing your storefront setting? Can you at least use it to redeem codes from -physical- imported games or anything similar? Or is the sole purpose of this getting users angry at Sony by making them see all the games that are not available in their region with no way to buy them?

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  • Yes, this question is a bit old, but I feel a clarification is needed here. Region locking a game store is not an old-fashioned thing. The average gamer in India or Brazil doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of spending money that the average gamer from the US or Germany has. So it makes 100% total sense to have different prices in different regions. And you can't enforce different prices if circumventing it is only a matter of flipping a setting in your profile. The fact that game selection is region locked is still stupid, though.
    – Arthur
    Commented Jun 30 at 19:03
  • I don't think that talking economy here really matters. Imho, artificial value creation achieved by locking people outside of digital content that can readily made available globally via Internet is just a legalized scam, but everyone can have their own opinion. Here, the "anachronism" is that games already localized in English (just go check PlayAsia "Asia English" game section) are withheld from other markets on the assumption they would not sell well or such. I'll gladly share views on this if you are interested, but that is for the chat.
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Jul 1 at 7:43

2 Answers 2

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An account is associated with a region when it is created. That user is still free to look at the store in other regions, even when logged in with that account, though their account is not able to purchase from regions other than their own. There are numerous differences in consumer law in each region, to which Sony must individually adhere. Because of this, each region is administrated separately. If someone in a country with strict consumer protection laws decided they wanted to return a game, but they had purchased it from the store for a country which does not have those consumer rights, things become very complicated very quickly.

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  • so, you are suggesting that actually there is no reason/gain from looking at other region storefront? That confirms my idea, but perhaps you could put that more directly. Another issue is that this seems to fall flat against the geoblocking EU rule
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Jul 1 at 9:09
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Sort of. I won't call it an "advantage", I think it's just a way to let you browse different stores (as suggested) and maybe discover different games not available on your home storefront.

Suppose you own several accounts and you don't want to switch them everytime: simply changing the country will let you see other "regional" versions of the games, and maybe find out that there are better discounts for a specific country.
Which is a dumb, and intended, way to do it. Luckily there are useful sites (like PS deals) that can do that quicker.

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    "maybe find out that there are better discounts for a specific country" which, technically, you would not be supposed to be able to buy because of geo-blocking being a thing on the store (bypassing the lock with multiple accounts is not intended) even if afaik Europe actually made geo-blocking ILLEGAL - see here. Yep, this is Sony for you. Will wait a bit but I think this is the only answer we may get.
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Jun 13 at 7:42
  • @Ꮢedacted The EU only made region-locking between different regions within the EU illegal, as the main point of the entire EU is to be one market. They have no jurisdiction nor wish to stop regionlocking elsewhere.
    – Arthur
    Commented Jun 30 at 21:50
  • @Arthur as far as I know if far more complicated - they probably have the jurisdiction to act on you as an operator in the EU zone even if the infringement is technically outside the area. If you are interested, I have a related question on Laws here.
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Jul 1 at 7:49

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